EZNews – 4.4 to 5.0

Moving from EZNews v4.4.n to 5.0.n
When the user launches
the EZNews client
application, they are
presented with the
Client/SysTray Dialog.
Access to a show rundown is done by selecting the appropriate menu option…
(As seen here, one can access
the other EZNews modules as
well.)
… or launching the Navigator Dialog.
Launch the Navigator by
pressing the Navigator
button on the toolbar.
The Navigator Dialog should look familiar to all EZNews
users. It shows all the Rundowns (Show, Archive,
Assignment, Wire and RSS) available to the user.
Upon selecting the desired show, the
Rundown is opened.
Highlighting a row and
pressing the Open
button (or doubleclicking on the
leftmost column)
results in an Edit
session for the script.
At this point, the layout of the screen may look reminiscent of the Version 4 Client window.
It may be helpful to note that the functionality within the EZNews v5.0 Rundowns and Edit
sessions is identical to the corresponding Rundowns and Editor in EZNews v4.4. Whatever a
user was able to do in the 4.4 Rundowns and Editor, they can do just the same in v5.0.
EZNews Preview Windows
EZNews Archive/Archive Search Rundowns for Archives and Assignments can open a Preview
window for Scripts. Simply clicking on an interior script column will open the preview window for
that Rundown. The user can easily preview any script contained in the Rundown by a simple
mouse click.
Clicking on a highlighted column (excluding the leftmost column) opens the preview window.
EZNews Wires Module
EZNews systems that have the optional Wires module activated allow users to easily browse all
standard and custom Wire categories. Again, for users of previous versions of EZNews, this
should look familiar.
Preview Wires:
Clicking on the subject column
will open a preview dialog.
Clicking on a different row will
simply result in that wire opening
in the same preview window.
RSS
The RSS component is a new feature in Version 5. It is a subgroup of the Wires component, and
therefore behaves much like Wires.
The EZNews Administrator can set up which RSS feeds are to be monitored, and users have
access to those feeds, much like Wires. The feeds are navigated via the RSS tree in the
Navigator. The user selects one of the feeds simply by clicking on it.
This results in the following Rundown:
Once open, the user can click on the Title column, which opens an RSS Preview window.
Search
Searching is as easy as pushing a button.
Pushing the Search icon in the Navigator
opens a Search Rundown for the
selected EZNews component (Archive,
Assignments, RSS or Wires).
Opening Search Rundowns can also be achieved by menu selections from the Rundown or
EZNews Client Dialogs.
The green Refresh
button is active
when new Wires or
Scripts have been
added to the
searched EZNews
component (in this
example, the Wires
module).
Pressing the
Refresh button will
refresh the Search
window to include
any new Wires
fitting the search
criteria.
The Rebuild button
allows the user to
recall the Search
Dialog and rebuild
the search criteria.
Home Wires
For those who have the Wires module activated, users and administrators may set up custom
search categories for users to collect Wires and display them in the Memogram/Home Wire
Rundown within their Client/SysTray Dialog. Users can create their own, personal categories or
look up categories created by an administrator through the EZNews Admin application.
Just like the other Search and Wire Rundowns, the Home Wires are viewable through a Preview
window.
Client Notification:
When the EZNews client is minimized onto the System Tray, the ‘EZ 5’ icon is initially blue, as
shown below. When the system is collecting wires, the user has Home Wire Categories defined
and a wire is fed to the user, the System Tray ‘EZ 5’ icon changes color to green, as shown below
in the second example. When the user receives a memogram, the ‘EZ 5’ icon changes color to
red, as shown below in the third example.
When the EZNews Client Dialog is floating on the desktop, the icon on the Taskbar mirrors the
icon changes in the System tray, because the EZNews Client Dialog may be partially or fully
hidden.
The corresponding Taskbar icons are displayed below.
Drag & Drop (D&D) from Rundowns
If the user has a script open, they can D&D a Wire or Script directly into a script editing session.
Or the user may Drop a Wire/Script from one Rundown directly into another.
Drag & Drop from Preview Windows:
Highlighted content, EZNews instructions as well as narrative text, can be dragged from a
preview window and dropped directly into a script.
Simply highlight
the desired
Narration and
Instructions
within the
preview
window.
Drag the
highlighted
content into the
open script.
This results in the content, including all instructions, being incorporated into the script.
Drag & Drop (D&D) from RSS Preview Windows:
The user may highlight content within the preview window and simply drag & drop the content
directly into a script.
Tracker Dialog
New to Version 5 is the Tracker Dialog. This dialog box, launched from the EZNews Client
application, tracks all the Rundowns and Editing sessions open within EZNews.
This allows the user to easily bring any open Rundowns or Editing sessions, which may be
obfuscated by other windows or minimized in the System Tray, to the forefront.
The next two panels show the process of bringing an Editing session to the forefront.
The Tracker
Dialog
shows that
a script is
open for
editing, but
is not
currently
displayed
on the
Desktop.
Once the
user clicks
the left
mouse
button on
the
obfuscated
script in the
Tracker,
that script is
brought to
the forefront
of the
Desktop.
This brief look into some of the user interface and functionality changes between
versions 4.4 and 5 should help users to be more comfortable in navigating
Version 5. The framework has changed, but the functionality within the EZNews
client software remains the same.